The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is responsible for U.S.
government legislation and oversight as it effects "dual use" exports -- those
materials and technologies that can be converted to military uses.

During the Cold War, United States export policy focused primarily on restricting the
export of sensitive "dual use" materials and technologies to the Soviet Union
and its allies. This myopic approach to the non-proliferation of these materials
ultimately resulted in the acquisition of unconventional weapons and missile-system
technologies by several "pariah nations" with aggressive military agendas. For
the United States, the reality of the dangers associated with these types of policies were
realized during the Persian Gulf War. Recognizing the shortcomings of existing policies,
and with the dissolution of the Soviet empire, an inquiry was initiated by the Committee
into the contributions that exports from the United States played in the weapons of mass
destruction programs that have flourished under the direction of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein.

On October 27, 1992, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held
hearings that revealed that the United States had exported chemical, biological,
nuclear, and missile-system equipment to Iraq that was converted to military
use in Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons program. Many of these
weapons -- weapons that the U.S. and other countries provided critical materials
for -- were used against us during the war.

On June 30, 1993, several veterans testified at a hearing of the Senate Committee on
Armed Services. There, they related details of unexplained events that took place during
the Persian Gulf War which they believed to be chemical warfare agent attacks. After these
unexplained events, many of the veterans present reported symptoms consistent with
exposure to a mixed agent attack. Then, on July 29, 1993, the Czech Minister of Defense
announced that a Czechoslovak chemical decontamination unit had detected the chemical
warfare agent Sarin in areas of northern Saudi Arabia during the early phases of the Gulf
War. They had attributed the detection to fallout from coalition bombing of Iraqi chemical
warfare agent production facilities.

In August 1993, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Donald W. Riegle Jr. began to
research the possibility that there may be a connection between the Iraqi chemical,
biological, and radiological warfare research and development programs and a mysterious
illness which was then being reported by thousands of returning Gulf War veterans. In
September 1993, Senator Riegle released a staff report on this issue and introduced an
amendment to the Fiscal Year 1994 National Defense Authorization Act that provided
preliminary funding for research of the illnesses and investigation of reported exposures.

When this first staff report was released by Senator Riegle, the estimates of the
number of veterans suffering from these unexplained illnesses varied from hundreds,
according to the Department of Defense, to thousands, according to the Department of
Veterans Affairs. It is now believed that tens of thousands of U.S. Gulf War veterans are
suffering from a myriad of symptoms collectively labeled either Gulf War Syndrome, Persian
Gulf Syndrome, or Desert War Syndrome. Hundreds and possibly thousands of servicemen and
women still on active duty are reluctant to come forward for fear of losing their jobs and
medical care. These Gulf War veterans are reporting muscle and joint pain, memory loss,
intestinal and heart problems, fatigue, nasal congestion, urinary urgency, diarrhea,
twitching, rashes, sores, and a number of other symptoms.

They began experiencing these multiple symptoms during and after -- often many months
after -- their tour of duty in the Gulf. A number of the veterans who initially exhibited
these symptoms have died since returning from the Gulf Perhaps most disturbingly, members
of veteran's families are now suffering these symptoms to a debilitating degree. The scope
and urgency of this crisis demands an appropriate response.

This investigation into Gulf War Syndrome, which was initiated by the Banking Committee
under the direction of Chairman Riegle, has uncovered a large body of evidence holding the
symptoms of the syndrome to the exposure of Gulf War participants to chemical and
biological warfare agents, chemical and biological warfare pre-treatment drugs, and other
hazardous materials and substances. Since the release of the first staff report on
September 9, 1993, this inquiry has continued. Thousands of government officials,
scientists, and veterans have been interviewed or consulted, and additional evidence has
been compiled. This report will detail the findings of this ongoing investigation.

On February 9, 1994, Chairman Donald W. Riegle, Jr. disclosed on the U.S. Senate floor
that the U.S. government actually licensed the export of deadly microorganisms to Iraq. It
was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical
to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological
warfare program.

Throughout this investigation, theDepartment of Defense has assured
the Committee that our troops were never exposed to chemical or biological agents
during the Persian Gulf War. They have repeatedly testified in hearings and
have made public statements that, at no time were chemical and biological
agents ever found in the Kuwaiti theater of operations.

In February of this year, the Chairman wrote a letter asking them to declassify all
informationonthe exposure of U.S. forces to chemical and biological
agents.

Then on May 4, 1994, the Chairman received assurances in a joint letter from Secretary
Perry, Secretary Brown, and Secretary Shalala, that

"there is no classified information that would indicate any exposures
to or detection of chemical or biological weapons agents."[1]

Also in May, Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn in sworn testimony in a hearing
before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, claimed that all chemical
agents were discovered

During the same hearing, another senior Defense Department official was forced
to recant part of the statement when confronted with the highly publicized discovery
of chemical agents by U.N. inspectors near An Nasiriyah, which was very close
to areas in which U.S. forces were deployed.[3]

In fact, we have received reports from Persian Gulf War veterans that U.S. forces
actually secured this chemical weapon storage area.

Also during the hearing, a joint memorandum for Persian Gulf War veterans from
Secretary of Defense Perry and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was presented.
The memorandum stated, in part

"there is no information, classified or unclassified, that
indicated that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Gulf."[4]

Then, the Department of Defense announced on June 23, 1994, that the Defense Science
Board found that

"there is no evidence that either chemical or biological
warfare was deployed at any level or that there was any exposure
of U.S. service members to chemical or biological warfare agents."[5]

This report raises serious questions about the integrity of the Department
of Defense position. It describes events for which the Department of Defense
explanations are inconsistent with the facts as related by the soldiers who
were present, and with official government documents prepared by those who were
present and with experts who have examined the facts.